Friday, January 12, 2007

Belief in evolution and political views

This week's issue of Science (Jan 12) has published a letter by Allan Mazur of Syracuse University that shows that belief in evolution in US is higher amongst political liberals than political conservatives after controlling for education and religious denominations. This is based on a survey of 3673 American respondents, of which a majority (53%), in any case, considered this statement, "Human beings evolved from earlier species of animals" to be definitely or probably not true. Here is the figure showing survey results:

The percentage of respondents believing in human evolution is plotted simultaneously against political view (conservative, moderate, liberal), education (high school or less, some college, graduate school), and respondent’s religious denomination (fundamentalist or not). Belief in evolution rises along with political liberalism, independently of control variables.

At least education is still doing some good - belief in evolution is correlated positively with the level of education (with the exception of high school and college educated fundamentalists). I'm not sure what to make of the political result - perhaps a social scientists can shed more light on it and we defintely need more data. It will also be interesting to see if this political view correlation also exists in UK and other western European countries.

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What is Irtiqa?

Irtiqa is a Science and Religion blog. It tracks and comments on news relevant to the interplay of science & religion - with a focus on scientific debates taking place in the Muslim world. Irtiqa literally means evolution in Urdu. But it does not imply only biological evolution. Instead, it is an all encompassing word used for evolution of the universe, biological evolution, and also for biological/human development. While it has created confusion in debates over biological evolution in South Asia, it provides a nice integrative name for a blog that addresses issues of science & religion. For further information, contact Salman Hameed.

The blog banner is designed by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. You can find all his creative endeavors at Orangie.

On Muslims and Evolution

Salman Hameed

Salman is an astronomer and Associate Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. Currently, he is working on understanding the rise of creationism in contemporary Islamic world and how Muslims view the relationship between science & religion. He is also working with historian Tracy Leavelle at Creighton University to analyze reconciliation efforts between astronomers and Native Hawaiians over telescopes on top of sacred Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He teaches “History and Philosophy of Science & Religion” with philosopher Laura Sizer, and “Science in the Islamic World”, both at Hampshire College. Salman and Laura Sizer are also responsible for the ongoing Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion, and you can find videos of all these lectures below. Contact information here.